• About
  • Books
  • Contact
  • Ebooks
  • Media Appearances
  • Videos

Fineartebooks's Blog

~ Fine Art Blog

Fineartebooks's Blog

Category Archives: art education

The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming of a Perfect Imperfection

17 Thursday May 2012

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, art movements, artistic photography, avant-garde, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary photography, Dan Andrei, Dan Andrei photographer, Dan Andrei photography, passion, passion in art, passionate art, photography, postmodernism, postromanticism.com, Romanian photography, surreal art, Surrealism, Surrealist art, Surrealist photography, The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming a Perfect Imperfection

≈ Comments Off on The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming of a Perfect Imperfection

Tags

aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, Alin Galatescu, art blog, art criticism, art history, artistic photography, Claudia Moscovici, Dan Andrei, Dan Andrei photography, Dan Andrei's photography, Dan St. Andrei, Dan St. Andrei photographer, Dan St. Andrei photography, danandrei.com, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, history of art, Marcel Proust, modern art, photographer Dan Andrei, photography, postmodernism, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanian photography, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensual art, sensuality, Surrealism, Surrealist photography, The Photography of Dan Andrei, The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming a Perfect Imperfection

Romanian-born photographer Dan St. Andrei adopts a philosophical approach to the art of photography. He states: “Life is eventually an eternal attempt to understand your purpose, to build up and mold, to grow and to define yourself … I would like to discover daily reasons to love myself.”  His images take on so many different styles and approaches: from the fetishism of his sensual fragments; to the poetic dynamism of his photographs of dancers; to the reflexive and dream-like quality of his dystopic utopia images, which he calls, in a deliberate pun,  Mytopia.

If his photo series have any common thread, it’s in depicting life, as Dan St. Andrei himself puts it, as “beautifully imperfect.” The beauty lies in the aesthetic impact, since Dan St. Andrei’s images are not only beautiful but also dreamy, even haunting. The imperfection is revealed in the human emotions and anxieties they reflect, holding a mirror to both what we reveal and what we hide within. As the artist puts it, through the art of photography, he searches “for  the meanings and hidden motivations that put our world into motion.”

It’s difficult to imagine a world without fantasy, without dream. This would be a world devoid of possibilities, without a future. Dan St. Andrei captures our dreams and hopes in motion, as they develop, both literally from the camera as well as figuratively in our minds. He states: “There are moments when we ask ourselves about our purpose in life, about its meaning and our motivations. There are moments when we ask questions about life, as it is or as we imagine it to be.” The gap between reality and dream is not unbridgeable. It’s often connected, in fact, by art and our imaginations: “There are moments when we allow our imaginations to roam free; in which we allow ourselves to dream.”

Dan St. Andrei captures the dreamer in each of  us, whether we’re artists or not. After all, it’s our dreams that make more bearable our imperfect reality; that help us change it for the better; that give us hope and a sense of drive and direction in life. Without these aesthetic dreams, we risk getting bogged down in the routines and responsibilities of daily life. The dreamer in us, the artist explains, “lives through these moments” when life’s “imperfection becomes beautiful.” This may be only our personal vision–a fantasy–or what, if we follow our dreams, we make happen in real life.

There is also a sense of nostalgia in Dan St. Andrei’s images, as he suggests bygone eras. He does this without melancholia however, even adding a ludic touch, as in the fashion series below, photographed by Dan St. Andrei and created with the help of the talented stylist, Alin Galatescu.

Andrei Octav Doicescu aptly stated:  “The present disintegrates, first in history, then in nostalgia.” Nostalgia is an acute, often painful, awareness  of an irretrievably  lost past that we still long for in the present. But Dan St. Andrei shows us the past doesn’t have to evoke sadness. The past can reappear in our present as a playful celebration of previous epochs, in our imaginations, in art and of course in history. 

Like a Proustian search for lost time in pictorial form–a search for lost love, for impossibly perfect social structures, for the (unattainable) fulfillment of our sensual and sexual desires–Dan St. Andrei’s photography captures the peregrinations of our search for meaning in a life deprived of certainties. You can view his portfolio on his website, http://danandrei.com/.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Postromanticism-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0739116754


Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Leonardo Pereznieto: Devotion to Art and Human Rights

13 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in Able Fine Art Gallery, art and activism, Art and Emotion, art blog, art criticism, art education, art movements, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, Edvard Munch, fine art, fineartebooks, history of art, Laura Ramirez, Leonardo Pereznieto: Devotion to Art and Human Rights, Mexican Consulate, postromantic aesthetics, postromantic art, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Realism, Romanian art, Romantic art, Romanticism, Romanticism and Postromanticism, The Scream

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Able Fine Art Gallery, art, art and activism, art and human rights, art blog, art criticism, art history, Artists and Runners for Human Rights Mexico, Claudia Moscovici, devotion to art and human rights, Edvard Munch, expressionism, fine art, fineartebooks, history of art, Laura Ramirez, Leonardo Pereznieto, Leonardo Pereznieto: Devotion to Art and Human Rights, Leonardo Pereznieto: Postromanticism and Human Rights, Mexican Consulate, postromantic art, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sculpture, The Scream

Leonardo Pereznieto is, along with me, the co-founder of the contemporary art movement postromanticism. He lives in Mexico and comes from an artistic family: his mother is a musician and his father was a well-known artist. He has won the Mozart Prize for the Arts for his sculpture, which epitomizes the ideals of postromanticism: an incredible life-like quality which is nevertheless full of imagination and fancy; a delicate sensual touch; a passionate sense of the spirituality of earthly existence.

On January 12th, 2012, Leonardo Pereznieto exhibited some of his works at the Able Fine Art Gallery, in New York City, alongside other notable international artists: Tanya Kazakowitz, Kim Wan, Steve Hickok, Kim Wan, Oh Se-Chul, Kim Ji-Young and Park Ju-Hyun. The opening reception was lively, with hundreds of art lovers in attendance. Laura Ramirez, the Associate Director of the Mexican Cultural Institute in New York, participated at the opening, representing the Mexican Consulate. The artist John Wellington, the sculptor Cynthia Eardley, the actress Suzi Lorraine, playwright and the director Micheal Simon Hall  also attended the show.

Leonardo Pereznieto has exhibited his work in many prominent galleries throughout the world, including Paris, Florence, London, Montecarlo, Frankfurt, Seoul, New York, Los Angeles, and Mexico City and has delivered over 50 lectures including at the New York Academy of Art, the University of Michigan and at the Celebrity Centre Florence, Italy. Among other honors and prizes, he has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Italy Award for Visual Arts; Premio Firenze (sculpture); the Mozart Prize for the Arts (sculpture), Nice, France and the award at the International Art Festival, New York, NY (sculpture).

Aside from his devotion to art, the artist has also dedicated a large part of his life to humanitarian causes. He is the Director of Visual Arts for the non-profit organization Artists and Runners for Human Rights Mexico, which has the purpose of raising people’s awareness about the UN´s Universal Declaration for Human Rights. Believing that art should also contribute to worthwhile social goals, Leonardo has dedicated the sculpture featured above, entitled The Scream, to the protection of human rights.

We’ve all seen Evard Munch’s Expressionist painting, The Scream (1893). The frantic colors, the skeletal shape of the man on the bridge, his gaping mouth, all suggest angst. This painting might as well be a symbol for the horrors humanity suffered after the artist died: the Stalinist purges, the Holocaust. How do you capture the human capacity for evil and senseless violence through sculpture?

Leonardo Pereznieto manages to do it eloquently in his version of The Scream. This sculpture features a man who resembles in some way Munch’s figure on the bridge: his gaping mouth voices a silent scream, while the lines on his face suggest hopeless anguish. His face is slanted upward, as if appealing for an explanation to the divine. We can’t tell if he finds any solace in faith. But we see quite clearly the source of his anguish: the beautiful woman he has lost, who lies languidly in his arms. Her lifeless shape is now free of pain. His rage contrasts with her endless repose. Together they form a symbol of the innocence and outrage of senseless human suffering.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Postromanticism-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0739116754


Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Google Art Project and Google Music: There’s No Turning Back

28 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, art movements, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, Google Music, Google Plus, history of art, modern art, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, The Google Art Project, The Google Art Project and Google Music: There's No Turning Back

≈ Comments Off on The Google Art Project and Google Music: There’s No Turning Back

Tags

aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, Claudia Moscovici, Google, Google Art Project, Google Art Project and YouTube, Google Music, Google Plus, googleartproject, increasing popularity of art, making art accessible, Metropolitan Museum of Art, panoramic views of art, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, seeing art online, Starry Night, the Frick Collection, the Frick Museum, the future of art, the future of galleries, The Google Art Project, The Google Art Project and Google Music: There's No Turning Back, The Google Art Project: There's No Turning Back, the Museum of Modern Art, the Palace of Versailes, the Tate Gallery, the Uffizi Museum, Van Gogh, virtual gallery tours, virtual museum tours, virtual tour of museums, youtube and art, YouTube art videos

On February 1, 2011 Google launched the groundbreaking Google Art Project. This is an online, high-resolution compilation of some of the greatest works of art, featured in some of the most famous museums, worldwide: including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and, my personal favorite, the Frick Collection in New York City; the Uffizi in Florence; the Palace of Versailles in Paris and the Tate Gallery in London. All in all, seventeen museums and galleries participated in this revolutionary venture.

According to the Wikipedia, Elizabeth Merritt, the Director of the Center for the Future of Museums, described the project as an “interesting experiment.” Other leaders in the world of art greeted this venture with more optimism. Julian Raby, the Director of the Freer Gallery of Art, stated that this project would increase viewers’ interest in visiting the actual museums. Brian Kennedy shared this view, stating that even though the virtual museum and gallery tours offer better resolution and panoramic perspectives, that’s still not a substitute for seeing the works of art in person.

It’s not the same, but, in my opinion, the Google Art Project represents the wave of the future–if not the present–not just for museums, but also for art galleries. Galleries in particular have taken a terrible hit during the past few years. Many were forced to go out of business. During tough economic times, art is seen as a luxury that many consumers are willing to forgo. The Google Art Project generates interest in great works of art once again. And with interest comes visits to the museum and galleries, which in turn, increases the number of  art collectors and buyers.

Incidentally, I also love the idea that Google, which now owns YouTube, combines the virtual museum tours with YouTube videos related to selected artists or works of art. By combining beautiful art and music, sometimes even local scenes, and by being so widely accessible to hundreds of millions of YouTube viewers, Google is making art accessible and inviting not only to art lovers but also to those who have only a remote interest in art.

The world of art has reached a pivotal turning point due to this, and similar, technological advances. Those galleries that will adapt to these new ways of reaching viewers to inform and attract the general public will be much more likely to survive than those that will not. I can’t see virtual reality becoming a substitute for actual reality in any domain: be it art, sex or entertainment. But I do see virtual reality as the most effective–and now, indispensable–way to spread information about the reality that will count most in the twenty-first century. You can learn more about this project by visiting the website http://www.googleartproject.com/c/faq.

More recently, in May 2011, Google also launched Google Music, an online service that offers music in a similar fashion to itunes (in fact, you can import songs from itunes on it). This new service is very versatile: you can purchase songs on Google plus as well as store up to 20,000 songs for free. So far Google Music is available only to U.S. residents, but it will soon open up to other parts of the world. You can find more information about Google Music on the website http://music.google.com.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Postromanticism-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0739116754

 


Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Poetry in Motion: The Dance Photography of Richard Calmes

14 Thursday Jul 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in a defense of pluralism, aesthetic philosophy, aesthetic pluralism, aesthetics, Alexandre Gurita, Alexandre Gurita's Biennale de Paris, Alexandre Gurita's Biennale of Paris, Art and Emotion, art blog, art criticism, art education, art movements, art nouveau, art videos, artistic photography, artistic pluralism, Biennale de Paris, Biennale of Paris, biennialfoundation.org, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary dance, contemporary photography, dance, dance and photography, dance images, dance photographer Richard Calmes, dance photography, dance photography Richard Calmes, history of art, images of dancers, modern dance, multidisciplinary art, Pavel Rotaru, photographer Richard Calmes, photography, photography and dance, photography Richard Calmes, photos dancers, photos of dancers, postmodernism, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Richard Calmes, Richard Calmes dance photography, Richard Calmes photography, richardcalmes.com, Romantic art, Romanticism, Romanticism and Postromanticism, The Dance Photography of Richard Calmes, the photography of Richard Calmes

≈ Comments Off on Poetry in Motion: The Dance Photography of Richard Calmes

Tags

aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, Alex Gurita, Alexandre Gurita, art, art blog, art criticism, art history, artistic collaboration, Biennale de Paris, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary dance, contemporary photography, dance, dance photography, dancers photography, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, history of art, images dancers, modern art, modern dance, multidisiplinary art, painting, Pavel Rotaru, photographer Richard Calmes, photography, photography and dance, photography of dancers, photography Richard Calmes, photos dancers, photos of dancers, Poetry in Motion: The Dance Photography of Richard Calmes, postromantic art, postromanticism.com, Richard Calmes, Richard Calmes dance photography, Richard Calmes dancers, Richard Calmes photographer, Richard Calmes photography, richardcalmes.com, Romanian dance, Romantic art, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensual art, The Dance Photography of Richard Calmes

The twentieth century was the era of specialization. Every field became so highly specialized and technical that only experts could master each discipline. The twenty-first century, however, is the era of collaboration. As an art critic, I’ve witnessed this comingling among different fields in the domains of advertising, cinema and photography. Some of the most talented photographers in the world work as Directors of Photography for commercials and film. Since both are primarily visual arts, one might expect a fruitful collaboration between the domains of photography and film. What is more unexpected, however, is the combination of photography and dance. No artist that I know of has pulled it off better than Richard Calmes.

An American dance photographer with a growing international reputation, Richard Calmes has  travelled all over the United States to capture the talent of some of the most gifted dancers and share it with the world. His images range from the most urban contemporary dancers in New York to the most classical dancers in Washington D.C.  He experiments with light, setting and color to capture the unique aspects of each genre of dance as well as of each dancer. His photography represents an homage to the beauty of dance as well as to the mental and physical strength and discipline it takes to be a dancer and make your body do what most of us can’t: and, what’s more, do it gracefully.

In an email exchange, Richard told me that his great admiration for dancers has a personal dimension (as well as, incidentally, a connection to my native country, Romania): “My daughter danced in Bucharest in the early 90’s. There was a dance Company here in Atlanta, Georgia founded by a Romanian, Pavel Rotaru, who was once a famous dancer there. He took them to Romania on tour and they were received with much passion. She had a great time. It was watching her grow up and improve year after year which taught me the sacrifices and love dancers have for their art!”

Richard Calmes’ images, like dance itself, are poetry in motion. They express movement, personality, character, mood and theme. His more shadowy black and white series is understated, classic and mysterious.  Most of his images, however, include striking and bright colors, to capture the drama, sensuality and passion of modern dance. And then you also have his motion or dynamic series, which trace the movements of the dancers in flight, to maintain the focus on dance as the most dynamic art form.

Featured on the covers of dance magazines as well as in gallery exhibitions, the photography of Richard Calmes shows the benefits of specialization and collaboration among the arts. This is no Marxist rotation of disciplines, where everyone purports to be good at everything: an impossible utopian goal that leads to nobody being really good at anything. Rather, Calmes’ images show the best of contemporary artistic reality at work: the most talented artists in each field working together to create something far better together than they would separately, as you can see in this video:

In my estimation, we’ll continue to see each field of art develop (both technically and artistically) and thrive in its own genre while at the same time we’ll see more and more collaborations among artists working in different domains. Soon art exhibits will no longer be held only in museums or galleries, but also in dance halls, movie theaters and concert halls. Analogously, dancers will sometimes dance at gallery exhibits, particularly when the exhibit itself focuses on the art of dance. Calmes is paving the way not only for other photographers, but also for the increasingly multidisciplinary direction of contemporary art in general. For more information about Richard Calmes’ photography, take a look at the artist’s website on the link below.

http://www.richardcalmes.com/

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Intoxication: Artistic Fame and the Magnetic Persona

01 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetics, After the end of art, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, art movements, artist Damien Hirst, artistic fame, avant-garde, Claudia Moscovici, conceptual art, contemporary art, Damien Hirst, fine art, fineartebooks, Friedrich Nietzsche, history of art, Immanuel Kant, Impressionism, intoxication in art, magnetic persona, magnetism, Nietzsche, originality in art, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bourdieu, postromantic art, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, The Field of Cultural Production

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art, art blog, art criticism, art history, Arthur Danto, artistic fame, artistic magnetism, Claudia Moscovici, conceptual art, contemporary art, Damien Hirst, Damien Hirst's fame, fame, fame and art, fame and Damien Hirst, fame in art, famous art, famous artists, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, Friedrich Nietzsche, history of art, Immanuel Kant, Impressionism, intoxication in art, Intoxication: Artistic Fame and the Magnetic Persona, Leonardo Pereznieto, magnetic persona, Nietzsche, originality in art, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bourdieu, postmodernism, postromantic art, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Salvador Dali, Surrealism, Surrealist art

No matter what they may say, few artists create art  only for themselves. Just as few writers write only for themselves (unless they’re only writing in a journal, and even then, they may do it with an eye for posterity). Most artists aspire to share their art with others. Many want that elusive concept of “fame”. Artistic fame means being valued in their own lifetime as well as leaving a significant trace of their art for posterity. This, of course, implies canonization: making their name–and style(s)–common currency not only for their own times, but for future generations as well.

Immanuel Kant gave us three standards for great art that stands the test of time: 1) originality (the first of its kind in a certain style), 2) exemplarity (others will want to imitate that style) and 3) inimitability (the art is so unique that others won’t really be able to imitate it, just as there are many Impressionist painters but only one Monet or Renoir). If we examine, however, the manner in which art is consecrated in reality, we see at work the processes described by the sociologist of art Pierre Bourdieu. Art is what artists, critics, museum curators and collectors deem it to be. In my estimation, both philosophers are partly right: art is what those in “the field of cultural production,” to use Bourdieu’s term, say it is; however, what they perceive as “art” has a lot to do with Kant’s three criteria for aesthetic value.

Perhaps even more so, art has to do with the magnetic persona of the artist. To offer a notable example, Pablo Picasso not only reinvented his art in radically new style during each of his periods–ranging from the relative realism of his blue period to his Cubism, to his collage art–but also shaped public opinion, juggled and manipulated art dealers and defined international art.  He commanded attention to his art largely thanks to his greater-than-life persona. Similarly, Salvador Dali, though one of the founders of Surrealism and an artist of immense talent, generated publicity for his art via antics that weren’t completely random. For example, to underscore the lobster motif of his art, he gave a talk in New York with his foot in a bucket and a lobster on his head.

In our times, I believe that Damien Hirst is the artist who manages to draw the public most effectively, not only through his sometimes shockingly original and diverse art–the pickled sharks, dissected cows, diamond-studded skulls and collections of diamond-clustered butterflies–but also through the way he presents himself to the media: through his dramatic persona. Artistic magnetism goes beyond mere shock value or even publicity stunts. It’s perhaps best described by Friedrich Nietzsche when he urges every person to live his or her life as a work of art. Few artists–let alone people in general–succeed in doing that. Because, as Nietzsche also states, “For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.” Artistic fame happens when both the artist and his art are able to intoxicate us.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

From Eros to Thanatos: Damien Hirst and Postromanticism.com

09 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, After the end of art, art blog, art criticism, art education, art for art's sake, art history, art movements, Arthur Danto, artist Damien Hirst, Away from the Flock, Bakhtin, Charles Saatchi, chronotopes, Claudia Moscovici, conceptual art, contemporary art, Damien Hirst, Damien Hirst and Postromanticism, death, death in art, Distinction, Duchamp, Edouard Manet, Emile Zola, From Eros to Thanatos, From Eros to Thanatos: Damien Hirst and Postromanticism.com, installation, Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga and Damien Hirst, neoconceptual art, pickled shark, Pierre Bourdieu, postmodern art, postmodernism, postromantic aesthetics, postromantic art, postromanticism.com, readymade, Realism, Realist art, Romanticism, Romanticism and Postromanticism, scandal, Sigmund Freud, spin paintings, spot paintings, The Field of Cultural Production, The Golden Calf, The Nation, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, Warhol, Young British Artists

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, After the end of art, art, art blog, art criticism, art history, Arthur Danto, Away from the Flock, Bad Romance, Bakhtin, Beautiful Inside my Head Forever, Charles Saatchi, chronotopes, Claudia Moscovici, conceptual art, contemporary art, Damien Hirst, Damien Hirst and postromanticism, Damien Steven Hirst, death, diamond studded skull, Distinction, Eros, Eros and Thanatos, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, From Eros to Thanatos, From Eros to Thanatos: Damien Hirst and Postromanticism.com, Georges Bataille, Hirst's art, history of art, installation, L'Erotisme, Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga and Damien Hirst, Lady Gaga plays Damien Hirst Piano, modern art, mortality, Museum of Contemporary Art, neoconceptual art, pickled shark, Pierre Bourdieu, pop art, postmodern art, postmodernism, postromantic art, postromantic movement, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, readymade, Romantic art, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Sotherby's auction, spin paintings, spot paintings, Thanatos, the art of Damien Hirst, The Field of Cultural Production, the Nation, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, Young British Artists

Damien Hirst is probably the most controversial and successful artist of our times, particularly if one measures success by how much critical attention art gets and how much it sells for. The founder of the avant-garde Young British Artists and considered to be the richest living artist in Great Britain, Hirst has had more than his share of both positive and negative media attention. The critical and artistic elite, however, hails him as one of the most innovative neoconceptual artists of our times. This is a very high honor, indeed, given that conceptual art has dominated the latter part of the twentieth century and continues to be very popular with critics today.

In most of his work, the philosopher and art critic for The Nation, Arthur Danto, explains the rise of conceptual art. His artistic heroes are Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, who arguably contributed most visibly to make art what it is today: aesthetic in the critical and reflexive ideas it raises about art rather than in the way it represents objects. Duchamp’s urinal and Warhol’s brillo boxes, Danto argues, are not artistic in their materiality. There’s nothing intrinsic to these objects that makes them different from ordinary household objects. Their aesthetic qualities, Danto suggests, lie in the way their make us question the nature and existence of art in a new and provocative way. The millennia-old Platonic tradition of understanding art as some kind of inferior mimesis or imitation of reality is clearly gone in such readymade objects and pop art assemblages. Gone is also the equally old tradition, famously initiated by Plato and resurrected by the Romantics, of art as a special, almost daemonic, force that inspires artists to create works of beauty. Last but not least, in reading Danto we get the impression that the notion of creativity and originality, defended by the French writer Emile Zola in his ardent defense of Manet, has been pushed to the extreme by Duchamp, Warhol and , more recently, by Hirst himself.

Much of Damien Hirst’s art explicitly evokes the concept (and reality) of death. His most famous readymade, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, features a 14-foot tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde and displayed in an aquarium. This piece was created in 1991, bought by the artist’s original patron, Charles Saatchi, and redone in 2006 (since the original began to rot). Hirst’s other controversial readymades include dead and dissected animals, a cow and a sheep (Away from the Flock), also preserved in formaldehyde. My personal favorite is In and Out of Love, which consists of colorful and delicate butterflies whose beauty in death is preserved by art.

Those familiar with the world of art already know everything I’ve just summarized. Now I’d like to examine Hirst’s art in terms of its cultural role as well as in terms of its complementarity to my own contemporary art movement, postromanticism.com. I will first consider Hirst’s powerful impact in the field of contemporary art, then his striking conceptualization of death, which will lead me to explore the continuity between the themes of Eros and Thanatos: desire and the life force represented by my movement postromanticism.com and death and mortality being represented by Hirst’s conceptual art.

1. The Field of Cultural Production and Shock Value. Although sympathetic to those who value the role of conceptual art to provoke thought, ideas and change assumptions about what is art, I tend to look at art more pragmatically and sociologically, relying upon the works of the French sociologist of art, Pierre Bourdieu (The Field of Cultural Production and Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste). I believe that art is what “the field of cultural production”—namely, art critics, artists, patrons, art schools, art teachers and professors and museum curators—say it is. The art considered most valuable by these cultural forums—meaning not only the art that sells for most money, but also the art that gets most critical attention (even if not always of the positive variety!)—is what defines art for a given context. This may seem somewhat relativistic, but it doesn’t have to be:  if one assumes that critics, artists, etc. propose valid and defensible standards of aesthetic value and judge art accordingly. Hirst’s works have probably made the biggest impact in the recent history of art, where conceptual art dominates the art scene, particularly in critical reviews and museums of contemporary art. (Of course, in other essays, I argue that conceptual art shouldn’t dominate those venues, and that curators and art critics should become more open to different styles of art, including more traditional styles inspired by the Romantic and realist traditions, which are very popular with galleries and the general public).

Hirst’s works are not original in the traditional Kantian sense of inimitability. In fact, the artist imitated his own work of art by placing a second shark in formaldehyde when the first one started to decompose. His work is original, however, in the sense of making a huge cultural splash and in being the first—or one of the first–of its kind to make that kind of impact or statement. This sense of originality is not far removed from shock value, a term which many (including me) have used to criticize postmodern art. The more I’ve opened my mind to all types of art since starting my art blog, however, the less critical and the more positive I’ve become about shock value. In fact, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that shock value may be necessary to keeping art alive in culture.

Art runs the risk of becoming increasingly culturally irrelevant. If you look at what attracts most public attention nowadays it’s the latest shenanigans of the Kardashians; the latest fashions and shoe trends; the cutest purses; the latest Hollywood hookups and scandals, the juiciest political sex scandals and–let’s not forget–the Royal Wedding. Not just art, but also politics risk falling by the wayside. As you may recall, in the not-so-distant past, it used to be that every major newspaper had foreign correspondents. Now we see the proliferation of entertainment editors and blogs, which have replaced, for the most part, foreign correspondents. In the U.S., rather sadly, international news has become almost exclusively a matter of headlines pertaining strictly to our foreign policy. We have to dig hard, as Americans, to find out what’s going on in the rest of the world outside of the area of high-profile celebrities, the wars we start, political scandals, or natural disasters. If international politics has become less relevant—in selling newspapers–than Kim Kardashian’s new engagement ring, you can imagine that the world of art risks being left even further behind.

The number of entertainment editors and blogs keep growing, while the number of high-profile art critics keeps falling, as the art and book critics are being swallowed up into the general rubric of Arts or Entertainment, which for the most part focuses on best-selling books and film reviews. In this context, if artists do not create something very entertaining, shocking and provocative to get the arts and entertainment critics and, more importantly, the general public interested in them, the world of art is likely to fade in the background of culture like a shy wallflower. Artists like Damien Hirst offer aesthetic objects that are so provocative  that whether or not you like that kind of art or even find it “artistic,” it places art, once again, at the center of public discussion, which is where it should be. As George Bernard Shaw famously stated, “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”

2. From Eros to Thanatos: Postromanticism and Damien Hirst’s art. Judging by its own aesthetic standards, I also appreciate the way Damien Hirst’s neoconceptual art makes us think about the continuity between love and death, or between Eros and Thanatos. In many respects, his artworks are opposite of and complementary to the art movement I co-founded with Leonardo Pereznieto in 2002, postromanticism.com. Postromanticism emphasizes the importance of beauty, sensuality and passion in contemporary representational art. While being original and edgy, postromantic art maintains the verisimilitude of the artistic objects—be they paintings, photographs or sculptures—which resemble the objects they depict.

By way of contrast, the notion of verisimilitude isn’t really applicable as a standard by which to judge Damien Hirst’s art. Hirst often exhibits the real object: the real sheep, the real shark, the real butterflies, in the same way that Warhol exhibited the real brillo boxes and Duchamp an actual latrine. Postromantic art is all about the importance of desire, love and passion in human life. Hirst’s artworks show us the ephemeral nature of such emotions. They often represent the literal embodiment of mortality, underscoring the fleeting nature of biological life itself. Postromanticism and Hirst’s conceptual art may therefore seem polar opposites, and in some respects they are. But every major anthropological and psychological study of love and death has depicted these oppositions as inextricably connected. Freud is known for discussing the link between love and death in his book, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, or between the life force (Eros, desire, sexuality) and the death force (or Thanatos, a term made popular by Paul Federn). Looking at the life and death forces in terms of energy flow, psychoanalysis looks at desire as a dissipation of energy, where every orgasm represents a “small death.”

Anthropologists make the link between love and death even more explicitly by looking at desire in the context of human sacrifice. The best book I’ve read on this subject is Georges Bataille’s L’Erotisme. For Bataille, love represents the hopeless search for our lost continuity. It’s hopeless because the unions we attain through sex and love are very fleeting. After copulation we return once again to our individuated, solitary selves. As they say, we’re all alone in pain and death. “In essence,” Bataille states, “the domain of eroticism is the domain of violence, of violation… The most violent thing of all for us is death which jerks us out of a tenacious obsession with the lastingness of our discontinuous being.”

Postromantic passion, as expressed by the artists associated with postromanticism.com, is a celebration of desire, respect, love and obsession for as long as these deep and powerful emotions can last. This art also celebrates passing on and transforming artistic traditions—the Romantic movement, neoclassicism and art nouveau—for our contemporary times. Hirst’s art provokes us to think about the obverse sides of love and desire: how quickly they can dissipate; how contingent human emotions can be; how wrong we often are about the objects of our desire; how idealization often turns into the devaluation of the object of love (or just lust); how even when love lasts, unfortunately, our lives do not. The danger represented by his tiger sharks or the mortality displayed by his dissected animals is, after all, also our own mortality and the danger we can pose to each other.

To emphasize the importance of this complementarity between postromanticism and Hirst’s neoconceptual art, I’d like to allude to one last cultural figure: Mikhail Bakhtin, the famous Russian formalist critic. Bakhtin argued that art and literary are chronotopic rather than just  diachronic. By this he meant that artistic and literary movements don’t happen just in linear/temporal sequence, one following the other, as they’re often taught in art and literary history. New art movements often go back in time to find inspiration in much older movements, the way Neo-Classicism found inspiration in Greek and Roman art and Romanticism went back to Medieval art.

The relation between postromanticism and Hirst’s neoconceptual is similar: each finds inspiration in older movements. Moreover, they end up depicting the themes of love and death in a way analogous to how the Romantic and Symbolist movements did this centuries earlier. Postromanticism draws more from the Romantic tradition while Hirst’s art echoes Symbolist obsessions (with death, decay, the unconscious, fears, and pushing the boundaries of art). I believe that the tension and complementarity between these two contemporary art movements is exciting and necessary. After all, a worthwhile human life must entail both the appreciation and celebration of love and beauty and the resignation and sense of irony towards our cosmic insignificance and transience. It all depends, like in the illusionist picture of the young or old woman featured below, upon your perspective.


Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Provocative Images of Nicolae Cosniceru

24 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, art movements, artistic photography, Claudia Moscovici, commercial photography, contemporary photography, Cosniceru, Cosniceru photography, cosniceru.com, fashion photography, fotofactory, fotogactory.ro, Nicolae Cosniceru, Nicolae Cosniceru Photography, photography by Nicolae Cosniceru, postmodern art, postmodernism, postromantic aesthetics, postromantic art, postromantic photography, postromanticism, postromanticism.com

≈ Comments Off on The Provocative Images of Nicolae Cosniceru

Tags

art, art blog, art criticism, art history, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary photography, Cosniceru, Cosniceru photography, cosniceru.com, fine art, fine art photography, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, Fotofactory, fotofactory.ro, history of art, Nicolae Cosniceru, Nicolae Cosniceru's Photography, photography, Photography by Nicolae Cosniceru, Romanian photography, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Surrealism, the photography of Nicolae Cosniceru, The Provocative Images of Nicolae Cosniceru

The Romanian photographer Nicolae Cosniceru puts a new spin on commercial and fashion photography. His images are stylish and polished, yet also have a rough, urban, element that takes viewers by surprise and makes them look closer at his pictures. They are often a study in contrast, in juxtaposition. Take, for instance, his high fashion photo shoot that takes place in a prison. The gorgeous models, dressed for a red carpet event, elegantly step out of the prison cells as if they were leaving a fancy restaurant. Next to them we see several prisoners, dressed in dingy prison uniforms, sitting calmly on a bench and getting their buzz haircuts. From their facial expressions you’d think: life as usual, for both the glamorous women and the imprisoned men. But the incongruity of the setting for the high fashion shoot adds an element of surprise that makes you do a double-take. Whatever may seem familiar about the world of entertainment and high fashion–which has almost taken the place of politics on the news–becomes, once again, refreshingly new.

Many of Cosniceru’s images also have more than a hint of humor. In Self-Portrait, featured above, the subject poses with the insolent manner of a European artist and intellectual: cigarette in hand (à la Jean-Paul Sartre?); in a spiffy black jacket; white striped shirt not buttoned all the way (only businessmen do that); gaze oriented upwards, most likely lost in profound thoughts. But the setting, once again, is rather unexpected and incongruous. The intellectual conducts his artistic contemplation not quite on the throne, but close enough: in a public restroom. For an added humorous touch, the toilet paper on the table is offered at a discount. And just to make sure viewers know they’re dealing with an Eastern European context, the bathroom door is smeared with the word DEFECT.

In a recent interview, Nicolae Cosniceru told me that he plans an artistic image to the same degree of detail that a painter would plan his painting. Self-Portrait includes relevant details, such as a cockroach on the floor, symbolic of the misery of the communist era. The photographer also revealed that he thought about placing a female model inside the stall, so viewers could see a woman’s feet and shoes instead of a man’s, to heighten the effect of the juxtapositions of the image. Devoted to the art of photography and a passionate aesthete–as well as, simultaneously, a loving and devoted husband and father–Cosniceru gives it his all, both in his art and in his family life.

Bakhtin, the famous Russian literary critic, argued that good literature (and art) is great at rendering the familiar new again. He coined a word for this process: defamiliarization. Through its surprising and innovative contrasts, Cosniceru’s photography defamilizes every concept and context it portrays, obliging viewers to look at his subjects with new eyes: not just once, but twice. Because when you look at Cosniceru’s provocative images it’s nearly impossible to resist doing a double-take. You can see more of his photography on his websites http://cosniceru.com/ and  http://www.fotofactory.ro/

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Postromanticism-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0739116754

 

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Jonathan Root’s Memorable Portraits

19 Thursday May 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, artistic photography, British photographer Jonathan Root, Claudia Moscovici, David Hockney, famous portraits, fine art, fineartebooks, Jonathan Root, Jonathan Root photographer, Jonathan Root's Memorable Portraits, Jonathan Root's Portraits, Philippe Starck, photographer Jonathan Root, Ron Arad

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

aesthetics, art, art blog, art criticism, art history, artistic photography, British Journal of Photography, British photographer Jonathan Root, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary photography, David Hockney, famous portraits, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, history of art, Jonathan Root, Jonathan Root photographer, Jonathan Root's famous portraits, Jonathan Root's Memorable Portraits, Jonathan Root's portraits, memorable portraits, modern art, modernism, New Design, Philippe Starck, photographer Jonathan Root, photography, portraits, portraiture, postmodernism, postromantic art, postromantic movement, postromantic painting, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Ron Arad, Spaces Magazine, the art of portraiture, the photography of Jonathan Root, the portraits of Jonathan Root

The art of portraiture is as old as human civilization itself. Until relatively recently, a portrait used to be, above all, a statement of cultural value. It revealed who, in any given society, had enough value that his or her image was worth being captured and preserved for posterity. While being a general statement of cultural importance, a portrait is also the most intimate and personal art form. A good portrait reveals a unique personality and captures the essence of a person.

Award-winning British photographer Jonathan Root is a master of the art of portraiture. He has photographed some of the most famous artists and designers in the world, including David Hockney, Philippe Starck and Ron Arad.  In each shot, he’s able to capture each person’s uniqueness and accomplishments through a careful orchestration of so many elements: setting, lighting, color scheme, facial expression and pose. The subject and his environment become reflections of each other, yet remain distinct. The setting mirrors who that individual is as much as his expression and pose blend in perfectly with his surroundings. This art of portraiture as simultaneous expression and camouflage makes each of Root’s portraits stand out. No two portraits are alike because no two individuals he has photographed are alike.

One of Root’s most famous portraits is the one of  Philippe Patrick Starck (see image above), a French designer known for the New Design style. He has furnished some of the most posh hotels around the world, including the Mondrian in Los Angeles and the Delano in Miami. Designing everything from furniture to toothbrushes and houses, Starck is innovative, avant-garde and flippant about his creativity. In an interview with Spaces Magazine, Root recounts the (in some respects fortuitous) adventure of photographing him:

 “This turned out to be one of my most enjoyable shoots. I had to go to Venice and then onto the island of Burano. Unfortunately, my tripod had been damaged in transit which I was worried about. When I arrived on the island I went to a restaurant only to discover that everyone was celebrating because they had just won the famous annual rowing competition. No one spoke any English but with lots of sign language one of the guys there came out with some tools and mended the tripod. He arrived in this crazy Agnes B suit and I thought ‘what have I let myself in for’. He found the Wet Floor sign and wanted to use it in the shot so we wandered around for a while and found a brilliant orange wall. I used one of his Ghost chairs in the picture and got him leaning backwards, which is very hard to do for any length of time.” (Spaces Magazine, April 2008)

The picture turned out phenomenal: a modern, avant-garde treasure of design in itself. Every element expressed Starck’s persona (which, for an artist and designer, may be far more important than his actual personality!): the zany, colorful clothes; the orange background; the Wet Floor sign; the comical, almost clownish pose, and despite it all, the stylishness of the image, evident even in significant details like the sunglasses, red gloves and toppled ghost chair. This portrait really screams, rather than subtly hinting, Philippe Patrick Starck! But, at the same time, it also expresses Root’s own signature style. That style constantly changes because, like a chameleon, it adapts to both subject and setting alike.

Take, for instance, Root’s portrait (above) of a more understated but equally creative artist: the Israeli-born designer and architect Ron Arad, who creates everything from showers to chairs. This picture is starkly black and white, modernist, topological: similar to Arad’s designs themselves.  Root captures his friend’s relaxed yet confident pose; his trademark hat and Crocs; his designer chair. Arad’s studio environment becomes a reflection and an extension of his identity and creativity, just as his image gives meaning to the carefully chosen objects that surround him.  Jonathan Root has stated in an interview that “some of [my] best shots have come about by chance” (British Journal of Photography). What wasn’t left up to chance, however, is a fluid style that adapts perfectly to each subject and setting, creating memorable portraits that speak volumes about each individual they come to represent. You can find out more about Jonathan’s portraits on his website, www.jonathanroot.co.uk.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com 

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Magical Realism of Michael Parkes

16 Monday May 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, beauty, Claudia Moscovici, fantasy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera, magical realism, magical realism in art, Maxfield Parrish, Michael Parkes, mythology, One Hundred Years of Solitude, pleasure, Pleasure and Sensuality, postromantic aesthetics, postromantic art, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, sculpture, sensuality, the magical realism of Michael Parkes

≈ Comments Off on The Magical Realism of Michael Parkes

Tags

aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art, art criticism, art history, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, fantasy, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Greek and Roman mythology, history of art, Love in the Time of Cholera, magical realism, magical realism in art, Maxfield Parrish, MIchael Parkes, modern art, mythology, One Hundred Years of Solitude, painting, postromantic art, postromantic movement, postromantic painting, postromanticism.com, sculpture, sensual art, sensuality, Surrealism, The Magical Realism of Michael Parkes, The World of Michael Parkes, theworldofmichaelparkes

 

Michael Parkes is a master of contemporary magical realism in art. Parkes is a painter, lithographer and sculptor of international repute. In literature, magical realism is associated with the works of Nobel-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose novels One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) play with myth and fantasy in their representations of reality. The critic Matthew Strecher defines magical realism as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.” In Marquez’s fiction, the depiction of everyday human lives takes on allegorical, and even mythic, proportions. Trespassing the boundaries between reality and imagination, magical realism taps into myth and fantasy to offer a deeper version of reality. So does the art of Michael Parkes.

Born in the state of Missouri and a graduate of University of Kansas, Michael and his wife travelled all over the world, including to Europe and Asia, where they found a wealth of artistic inspiration. In an interview, Michael states that he’s always had “two loves in [his] life… art and philosophy.” An avid reader of Greek and Roman mythology as well as Eastern philosophy, Michael integrates mythical motifs into his art, similarly to the legendary American painter and illustrator, Maxfield Parrish.

In the lithograph above, called Angel Affair, Parkes harmoniously combines the fantasy of a seductive angel with elements of a Greek goddess and the realism of a man dressed in a business suit. Angel Affair depicts an escape from the mundane reality of work through the promise of a pleasure with no sacrifice: a sensuality that retains its innocence. What may be impossible in real life, becomes possible in the world of of magical realism.

In his magnificent sculptures, Michael Parkes often relies upon characters from Greek and Egyptian mythology to represent not only the unique blend of magic, faith and supernatural explanations of reality that ancient cultures provided, but also the complementarity between masculine and feminine principles. In every domain–drawing, painting, sculpture and lithography–Michael Parkes’ magical realism unites the artistry of life-like representations with ancient cultural symbols that feed our imaginations and offer us an enriching escape into the world of fantasy.

You can view more of Michael Parkes artwork on his website, 

http://www.theworldofmichaelparkes.com/cm/Home.html

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com


Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

An Intimate Specularity: The Artistic Photography of Frédéric Bourret

11 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, art education, art movements, artistic photography, Claudia Moscovici, Fédéric Bourret, fine art, fineartebooks, French photography, modern art, photography, postromantic aesthetics, postromantic art, postromantic photography, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensual art, sensuality

≈ Comments Off on An Intimate Specularity: The Artistic Photography of Frédéric Bourret

Tags

aesthetics, An Intimate Specularity: The Artistic Photography of Frédéric Bourret, art, art blog, art criticism, art history, artistic photography, black and white photography, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, Frédéric Bourret, Frédéric Bourret photography, French photography, mirroring, modern art, photographer Frédéric Bourret, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensual art, sensuality, specularity in art, the images of Frédéric Bourret, the photography of Frédéric Bourret, women in art

French photographer Frédéric Bourret offers a peek into mysterious, and perhaps unknowable, sides of us. His black and white images are hidden glimpses into an intimacy which is subtle, and only hints at the sexual, reminiscent in their perspective of Degas’s voyeuristic representations of dancers. Bourret often depicts feminine figures in shadows, or looking out the window, or mirroring each other, in a spectacular specularity that makes them both viewer and viewed. Inside and outside meet in this act of self-consciousness, reflected (quite literally) in the image below:

The photographer also depicts young women looking out the window, glimpsing at the city life which remains a mystery to them, as it is for the viewers. And here the themes of his intimate series à découvert mirror the motifs of his urban scenes, in his photographs of Paris and New York, a city where the artist has spent five years. Bourret’s skyscrapers, streets and secret corners all retain a touch of mystery despite the crisp clarity and polish of the images. The play of light and shadows, their impeccable artistry, and a furtive peek at objects and subjects partially hidden from view, all give the artistic photography of Frédéric Bourret an aura of intimate specularity. You can see more of Frédéric’s à Découvert images  on the link http://www.fredericbourret.com/serie-a-decouvert.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • Frédéric Jousset: From the Beaux-Arts tradition to the innovation of Art Explora
  • The Dynamic Abstraction of Nicolas Longo
  • Darida Paints Brancusi
  • Paola Minekov’s Undercurrents: The cover for Holocaust Memories
  • The Impressionist movement and the artwork of Chris van Dijk

Top Posts

  • Diderot's Salons: Art Criticism of Greuze, Chardin, Boucher and Fragonard
  • Rodin's Muses: Camille Claudel and Rose Beuret
  • A Toxic Love: Gilot describes her Life with Picasso
  • Why We Love Brancusi
  • Daniel Gerhartz: The Beauty of Representational Art
  • The Escheresque Photography of Sebastian Luczywo
  • Richard Burlet and the new Art Nouveau
  • On saving European art from the Nazis and The Monuments Men
  • The Impressionist movement and the artwork of Chris van Dijk
  • The Legacy of Impressionism: Individualism, Autonomy and Originality in Art

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 272 other subscribers

Blog Stats

  • 453,790 hits

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Archives

  • July 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2019
  • September 2018
  • May 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • November 2015
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 272 other subscribers
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Blogroll

  • Be Art Magazine
  • Catchy Magazine
  • Edson Campos
  • Edson Campos Art reviews
  • Fine Art E-book Website
  • Leonardo Pereznieto's art
  • Literatura de Azi
  • LiterNet
  • Litkicks
  • Postromantic art
  • Revista Hiperboreea
  • Support Forum

May 2023
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Jul    

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Fineartebooks's Blog
    • Join 272 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Fineartebooks's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: