Tag: Paintings
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01 Orientalist Painting, Guillaume Seignac’s Odalisque, with footnotes, #115
An odalisque was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the eroticized artistic genre in which a woman is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position,…
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01 Painting, Streets of Paris, Ellen von Unwerth’s Bye Bye Paris, Part #82
Ellen von Unwerth (born 17 January 1954) is a German photographer and director, specializing in erotic femininity. She worked as a fashion model for ten years before becoming a photographer, and now makes fashion, editorial, and advertising photographs. In a 2018 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she explained her feminist approach to photography: “The women in my…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Louai Kayyali’s Then What, with Footnotes, #66
In Kayyali’s work eleven figures (seven women, two boys and one man) are crowded together as though walking in unison. With most of their gazes turned away from the viewer, they are lost in the suggested horror of their surroundings as several peer up at an invisible, looming force. In the center of the canvas…
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10 Works, January 31 the anniversary of The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Jesuit Treason
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of England’s Parliament on 5 November…
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01 Work, RELIGIOUS ART – Interpretation the bible, Neapolitan master’s ARCHANGEL MICHAEL FIGHTING THE DEVILS OF THE UNDERWORLD, with Footnotes – 124
Extremely complicated composition, with figures moving in opposite directions. In the color and the reproduction of the physical, the strong influence of Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640) can be seen, with whom he had worked together at the festive decoration in Ghent. All these stylistic aspects suggest the attribution. So too, this painting is…
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01 Marine Painting – Otto Kuster’s Sydney Summer, with Footnotes, #349
Sydney is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. A quick Google search tells us that Sydney has over a hundred beaches scattered across the city, and that’s just the recorded number. There are heaps of hidden beaches that manage to stay under the radar. Unsurprisingly, if you were to visit…
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01 Sculpture , RELIGIOUS ART, Giambologna’s Christ at the column – with footnotes #188
As Avery notes, the present model was attributed to Giambologna on the basis of the strong modeling of the body and the hands of the figure but is more likely to have been cast by a younger follower. There are at least two other identical versions, both of which were attributed to Antonio Susini, the…
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01 Work , RELIGIOUS ART, Parmigianino’s Virgin with Child, St John the Baptist, Magdalene and Zachariah – with footnotes #190
Madonna with St Zachariah dates to the early 1530s, when the artist, who had fled after the Sack of Rome 1527, was staying in Bologna for a few years, focusing on an intense production of altarpieces and paintings for private devotion like this one. The stern gaze of the priest, father of John the Baptist,…
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01 Work , RELIGIOUS ART, Frederick Arthur Bridgman’s Pharaoh and his Army – with footnotes #189
The painting depicts the Biblical narrative in the Book of Exodus (14:28) of the Israelites led by Moses fleeing the Egyptians. After promising them freedom, the Pharaoh reneges on his word and chases after the Israelites as they escape through a waterway which had been parted by command of Moses’ staff. As the Egyptian army…
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01 Marine Painting, Maurice MacGonigal’s CURRACHS FISHING – With Footnotes, #348
A currach is a type of Irish boat with a wooden frame, over which animal skins or hides were once stretched, though now canvas is more usual. It is sometimes anglicised as “curragh”. The currach has traditionally been both a sea boat and a vessel for inland waters. The River currach was especially well known for…
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01 Painting, MIDDLE EASTERN ART, Safwan Dahoul’s UNTITLED, with Footnotes – #5B
Safwan Dahoul was born in 1961 in Hama, Syria, Dahoul was initially trained by leading modernists at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus before travelling to Belgium, where he earned a doctorate from the Higher Institute of Plastic Arts in Mons. Upon returning to Syria, he began teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts…
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04 Wooden Sculptures, RELIGIOUS ART – The Holy Trinity, Virgin and Child, Christ as the Man of Sorrows and the Pieta, with footnotes #188
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity holds that God is one God, but three coeternal consubstantial persons or hypostases — the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit — as “one God in three Divine Persons”. The three Persons are distinct, yet are one “substance, essence or nature”. In this context, a “nature” is what one is,…
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01 Painting, Streets of Paris, CHARLES MALLE’s La loterie du manège à Montmartre, with footnotes, Part 88
Charles Gleize, known as Charles Malle, was born on August 9 1935 in Douai in Northern France and brought up in a family of craftsmen. His Post-Impressionist paintings are very popular and collectible in both France and the United States. He is associated with the School of Montmartre, a loosely knit group of painters that goes…
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02 Works – Louis-François Cassas’ visit to Lebanon, with footnotes
The Temple of Jupiter is a colossal Roman temple, the largest of the Roman world, situated at the Baalbek complex in Heliopolis Syriaca (modern Lebanon). The temple served as an oracle and was dedicated to Jupiter Heliopolitanus. It is not known who commissioned or designed the temple, nor exactly when it was constructed. Work probably…
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01 Painting, The Art Of The Nude, Boris Kustodiev’s Model, with footnotes # 156
Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan on March 7, 1878 into the family of a professor of philosophy, history of literature, and logic at the local theological seminary. Between 1893 and 1896, Boris took private art lessons in Astrakhan. Subsequently, from 1896 to 1903, he attended Ilya Repin’s studio at the Academy of Arts in…
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1 Work, Artists Interpretations of Hellenic legends, Raffaello Sorbi’s Bacchanal, with footnotes #189
Bacchanalia, also called Dionysia, in Greco-Roman religion, any of the several festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus), the wine god. They probably originated as rites of fertility gods. Introduced into Rome from lower Italy, the Bacchanalia were at first held in secret, attended by women only, on three days of the year. Later, admission was extended to…
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01 Marine Painting – Henry Scott’s The clipper ship Light Brigade, with Footnotes, #347
Ocean Telegraph was an American clipper ship. Built in 1854 for the run between New York and San Francisco, she was later sold and renamed Light Brigade in 1863. For the next 12 years she was used predominantly to transport cargo and immigrants between London and Australia and New Zealand. She was described as “a very sharp clipper…
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11 Work, Artists’ Interpretations of Hellenic legends, The Rape of Deianira, with footnotes #188
Hercules pursuing the centaur Nessus, who wants to kidnap his wife Dejanira. However, the scene only gives Veronese the opportunity to describe the involvement of the figures in the mysterious realm of nature — an old theme of Venetian painting. Veronese’s latest style can also be recognized by the clearly darkened, autumnal colors and the open brushstrokes.…
Zaidan Gallery 