Happy Birthday Egon Schiele!

Nude-woman-hair-dressing

Today is the birthday of Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele (b. 1890 – 1918).  Schiele was a protégé of Gustave Klimt and is also associated with the art nouveau movement.  His expressive use of line indicates his substantial  talent.   Shieles’ figures are often twisted and distorted.  They are sinewy, sexually posed and very often disturbing. 

Seated-Woman-With-Bent-Knee

Schiele attended the Vienna School of Art and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) where Gustave Klimt had also studied.  After a year, and at his relative’s insistence, he then moved onto the more traditional Akademie der Bildenden Künste  where  he studied drawing and painting.

Standing-Male-Nude-With-A-Red-Loincloth

Gustave Klimt took a lot of interest in Schiele, mentoring him  and even buying some of his drawings.  Klimt appreciated Schiele’s talent and  took the young artist under his wing,, securing him patrons and introducing him to the arts and crafts workshop (Wiener Werkstätte,) who were connected with the Secession. 

Standing-nude-young-girl

In 1909, under Klimt guidance, Schiele exhibited at the Vienna Kunstschau.  There he was to encounter the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch who also exhibited.  Schiele’s work explored the human form and sexuality, which is often very explicit in some of his work.  The artist himself was often the centre of controversy over his involvement with his young models.  His favorite model was 17-year-old Valerie Neuzil (known as Wally) and she features heavily in his work.

Frau-Schiele

Schiele’s led a very chequered life – and  was even imprisoned briefly for using underage models.  In time he married a ‘suitable’ and more socially acceptable bride than poor Wally.  In World War 1 he was stationed in Prague were he drew and painted whilst guarding the Russian prisoners of war.   In 1918 he took part in the Secession’s 49th exhibition in Vienna, where he also designed a poster for the event, as well as exhibiting 50 works.  The success of this show was to elevate Schiele’s work, increasing its  popularity and its price.  Schiele died a tragic death three days after his pregnant wife in the autumn of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.  He was only 28 years old.

Dead-Mother

More detail of Schiele’s life can be found here

All images from http://www.egon-schiele.net/ with thanks!

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Dorian Grey? Not in this attic

They say women are vain – but when it comes to artists it seems that men never get tired of looking at their own reflection – and painting them.  Van Gogh was one of the most prolific self-portrait artists, (and one of the most unvain artists) as was  Rembrandt and Picasso.  It is interesting to look at the way age creeps into these self portraits, and is also a tribute to some of the artists lack of vanity and pursuit for truth that makes the ageing process unflattering in some cases.  This gentle film takes a look at some famous self-portrait painters.  Some like Rembrandt chronicled his age throughout life, some stop short at youth.   Here is part of a list of the artists featured, the rest are here.  See how many you can recognise.

Artists in order of appearance:
0:08 – Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519
0:15 – Francisco Goya 1746-1828
0:22 – Albrecht Dürer 1471-1528
0:29 – Sir Joshua Reynolds 1723-1792
0:35 – Rembrandt 1606-1669
0:42 – Andy Warhol 1928-1987
0:48 – William-Adolphe Bouguereau 1825-1905
0:55 – Henri Matisse 1869-1954
1:02 – Eugène Delacroix 1798-1863
1:09 – Jean-François Millet 1814-1875
1:15 – Jan van Eyck 1395-1441
1:22 – Peter Paul Rubens 1577-1640
1:28 – James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903
1:35 – John Singer Sargent 1856-1925
1:42 – Kazimir Malevich 1878-1935
1:49 – Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665

Video and list from eggman913  and info from by Philip Scott Johnson

500 Years of Male Self Portraits in Western Art

with thanks!

Behind the paint ‘A Tale of Two Chairs’

Van Gogh Chair with pipe 1888

I’ve just put a poem on my other blog Bookstains, using Vincent Van Gogh‘s very famous chair to illustrate it.  A recent (virtual) trip to the Van Gogh Museum (see this post) gave me the opportunity of seeing his paintings up close.  I have seen Van Gogh’s chair before in The National Gallery London – however, this isn’t the only chair the artist painted.

Gauguin's armchair 1888

When Van Gogh’s hero Gauguin stayed with him at the Yellow House in Arles, the  artists initially did get on with each other.  All this was to change though. Van Gogh painted two chair picures – his own chair and Gauguin’s  (Gauguin’s being in the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.)  The  chairs embody  the differences between the two artists temperaments and approaches to art.

Van Gogh has painted Gauguin’s more comfier  stylish chair and placed it upon a carpet of flowers.  A candle  illuminates some books which lie there: the green wall behind it is lit  by a blazing lamp.  Van Gogh’s own yellow chair sits in the kitchen on old brown kitchen tiles.  A box of onions lie in the background and the blue door in the picture is shut.  Upon this battered high-backed chair with its stout uneven legs, lies a pipe and some tobacco wrapped  in a scrap of  crumpled paper.

The-Empty-Chair by Luke Fildes

The empty chairs show the artists having left them of course – even perhaps to have departed from this earth.  The contrasts between the chairs do seem to illustrate the differences between the artists (from Van Gogh’s viewpoint).  Van Gogh more attuned to the ethics of the hard working peasants and Gauguin more worldly and sophisticated. What is known is that Van Gogh, who liked  English graphic art was inspired by an image which he saw  in a Victorian Magazine The Graphic by Luke Fildes ‘The Empty Chair, Gad’s Hill’ in 1870, the year Charles Dickens died. 

The paintings also acts as a reminder of that fateful night in 1888 when Van Gogh and Gauguin’s relationship finally reached breaking point, culminating in him threatening Gauguin with a razor (the latter wisely decided to stay at a local hotel that night) and Van Gogh proffered his severed ear lobe to a prostitute.

 Google art Project – Virtual trips around 17 famous museums here

Lots of information about these two paintings here

Van Gogh Images from here

Luke Fildes image from here

Another Poetry Challenge!

A lot of people go on to my other blog ‘Bookstains’ looking for something to see.  I’ve been putting my own poetry and book reviews on there and just linking to it.  Now I am going to host my poetry challenges on there too!  The Vincent Van Gogh poetry challenge was a real success and all the entries were very individualistic, imaginative and thoughtful:)  I’d like to thank all that joined in – and say that the challenge is  OPEN indefinitely so if you want to join in just click HERE, watch the minute long video and send your poem either in your comment OR just email me and I’ll put it on.  You may copy the ‘Vincent Could have told You’ logo if you want – don’t forget to link to me at Bookstains🙂  It goes without saying that I shall be promoting the challenges after my posts on echostains.

That’s the news – here’s another challenge:-

This poetry challenge is about the smile of the famous Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo Da Vinci between 1503 – 1506.  The lady’s smile (and it has been said that she may not be all ‘she’ seems) is one of the most enigmatic smiles ever painted. The challenge is write a poem or a haiku about that smile, or the lady or the relationship between the artist and the lady.  Here’s an extract of mine :-  to see the rest and to join in with your own, just click the pic and send your poem either in the comment box or by email and I will put it on.  You can use the Mona Lisa pic – but please link back to Bookstains’

Lets have some fun!

The Lips Don’t Lie……

Shut up!

Already

Moaning!

Mona Lisa

As I try to

Keep the brush steady

With my ingenious strokes…

Whilst your countenance

Provokes

Me!

If only……..

(Continued on Bookstains HERE)

original image from here Thanks!

But I could have told you Vincent – It’s your Birthday!

 

tortured soul with bandaged ear

 

Today is the birthday of Vincent Van Gogh.  It’s a pity the man never lived to enjoy his fame.   Much has already been written about him already.  Van Gogh was an enigma, born miles before his time.  I think this is where the idea of the starving artist came from: the tortured soul suffering for his art:  soul searching, misunderstood: the poor scraping artist starving in his garret.  Of course, some did do this.  Some even think that it is neccessary to suffer for their art, or like Tracy Emin, sufferng becomes their ouvre, the subject of their work.  But these days generally, artist’s can’t be expected to live by their art alone (lucky ones can), others have to join the rat race and peddle on that hamster wheel to keep themselves in materials!

 

tortured angst

 

To suffer for art was considered romantic.  The famous painting by Henry Wallis ‘Death of Chatterton’ 1856, encapsulates the romantic notion of the starving artist.  Poet Thomas Chatteron committed suicide in his garret  by poisoning himself, rather than starve.  He was 17 years old.

 

death of chatterton by henry wallis 1856

 

The artiste Morrisey from the Smiths spoke to angst ridden teenagers like no other, sharing all the pain of growing up.  We revelled in it! No one understood us……the pain fades but the memory doesn’t.  It’s a good job we decided to ‘grow out of it’ and ‘get over ourselves…… or is it?  Those that didn’t now seem to be immortalised!

 Last night I dreamt

that somebody loved me

No hope, no harm

Just another false alarm

Last night I felt

real arms around me

No hope, no harm

Just another false alarm

So tell me how long

Before the last one?

And tell me how long

before the right one?

The story is old I KNOW

But it goes on

The story is old I know

But it goes on

Oh GOES ON

And on

And goes on

And on

Morrisey

morrissey the man who UNDERTANDS

Here is a list of links to post I have made so far concerning artist’s birthday.  I have tried to make it a rule that I actually LIKE the artists’ work!   Some artists I do like, I have not included so far, as their birthdays have clashed with something else I was writing about. Some birthdays I have only found out about when it was too late to include them , I mean to rectify this at a later date.

Rubens

Gauguin

Dali

Leonardo da Vinci

Hart Benton

Turner

Morris

Pollock

Chagall

Kahlo

Modigliani

Degas