{"id":209,"date":"2003-05-29T06:47:30","date_gmt":"2003-05-29T11:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=209"},"modified":"2003-05-29T06:47:30","modified_gmt":"2003-05-29T11:47:30","slug":"fine_art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/29\/fine_art.html","title":{"rendered":"Fine Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of the ongoing effort to move material from my stale regular web pages to my if-it’s-stale-it’s-because-it’s-a-blog blog pages.<\/i><\/p>\n

Despite (or perhaps because of) my comic book addiction, I have a great appreciation for fine art — particularly art that is both realistic and just a scosh magical or fantastic. What follows are some of my favorite “real” artists.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A lot of the folks below (and many others we love but can’t show, like Rosetti <\/a>and Burne-Jones<\/a>) are Victorian Era artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood <\/a>(PRB), or folks who were influenced by them.<\/p>\n

Their ideas were that for every scene a real unidealised landscape or interior should be painted, that every figure should be based on a real model with their real proportions, that the figures should be grouped without reference to any artistic arrangement, and that they should paint worthy subjects. That is to say, as Ruskin had it, to avoid<\/p>\n

“Cattle-pieces and sea-pieces and fruit-pieces and family-pieces, the eternal brown cows in ditches, and white sails in squalls, and sliced lemons in saucers, and foolish faces in simpers.”<\/i><\/p>\n

What then, do we see in the early Pre-Raphaelite pictures? Firstly, they are generally bright – much more so than contemporary academic pictures – painted on a white ground. Secondly, the “truth to nature” apparent in attention to minute detail, to colour, and sometimes a lack of grace in composition. Thirdly, a taste for significant subjects – from mediaeval tales, from poetry, from religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what’s not to like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Spring<\/a>Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema <\/a>is one of my favorite artists, and to me an exemplar of the Pre-Raphaelite <\/a>Movement. He painted lusciously realistic figures, and got past much of the Victorian stuffiness by setting them in classical millieaux. If you see lots of marble in a Pre-Raphaelite painting, it’s either Alma-Tadema or one of his imitators. The piece here, Spring<\/i><\/a>, is one of my favorites, and shows the complexities of what Alma Tadema did. It hangs at the Getty<\/a>, which means I’ve have a chance to see it, and we have a print of it up in our living room.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Flaming<\/a>Frederick Lord Leighton <\/a>is another Victorian British artist, sometimes lumped in as Pre-Raphaelite. He’s a bit more lush than Alma Tadema, but just as enjoyable. A print of this piece, Flaming June<\/i>, can be found over our bed. She’s great.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Ravissement<\/a>Adolphe-William Bouguereau <\/a>is often lumped in <\/a>with the PRB, mainly because his works show the same spirit. A fine, but underappreciated<\/a>, artist. We’re looking for a copy of this work, Le Ravissement De Psyche<\/i>, though this piece <\/a> and this one <\/a>are fine one, too. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Circe<\/a>John Waterhouse <\/a>is yet another of those PRB-style guys<\/a>. He’s best known, perhaps, for his Lady of Challott<\/i><\/a>. Circe Invidiosa <\/i><\/a>hangs in our family room at the moment.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Ecstasy<\/a>
\nMaxfield Parrish <\/a>was one of the great, classic American illustrators<\/a>, and his rich use of color and fantastic images are dreamlike wonders, as in this piece, my most favorite of his, Ecstasy<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Dance<\/a>Alphonse Mucha <\/a>was a famous Czech artist of the Art Nouveau <\/a>movement. He’s most famous for various prints <\/a>and posters durnig his time in France. The piece shown here is called Dance<\/i>, and is (at this writing) my current wallpaper (though browsing the Net, is see a wild array of color tones in other reproductions of it). On my office wall, I have versions of this <\/a>and this<\/a> currently up in my office. <\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Sibyl<\/a>
\nBarry Windsor-Smith <\/a>has done comics, yes, but he’s branched out into much more classical art as well, drawing extensively (so to speak) on the vernacular of both the PRB and the Nouveau movement. Visitors to our house may recognize Sibyl <\/i>from the family room. Liberomano <\/i><\/a>graces our living room.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Circus<\/a>Michael Parkes<\/a> is touted as a “magical realist<\/a>,” and his works <\/a>are often laden with metaphor of various sorts, both fascinating and disturbing. This print, Circus Memories<\/i>, hangs in my office — it’s one of the few, um, corporately acceptible images Parkes has done.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Diane<\/a>
\nJeffrey Jones <\/a>is a contemporary illustrator as well, reminiscent of Frazetta<\/a> (whom I also like), but often with more classical overtones. We’ve managed to end up with a number of his works, including Diane<\/i>, shown here (and in my office), and a nice quartet of the Seasons, which are up in our bedroom.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Hawaii<\/a>No review of our art would be complete without mention of Gary Mauro<\/a>, whose work graces the wall over our fireplace (the image here is similar, if monochrome). We discovered Mauro’s work when we visited Santa Fe, where he keeps his gallery. He works in a variety of media, including fabric and cast paper reliefs, and some glorious (and expensive!) bronzes. I certainly wouldn’t mind picking up a few of those. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Note: All the images on this page are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders. No infringement of those rights is intended. The graphics here are solely for review purposes.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of the ongoing effort to move material from my stale regular web pages to my if-it’s-stale-it’s-because-it’s-a-blog blog pages. Despite (or perhaps because of) my comic book addiction, I have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4663,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/26\/bt03_bring_on_t.html","url_meta":{"origin":209,"position":0},"title":"BT03 – Bring on the Comics Reviews!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Jul-03 11:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"One more round, then I'm taking a lunch break....","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":109,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/12\/hey_kids_comics.html","url_meta":{"origin":209,"position":1},"title":"Hey, Kids! Comics!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Jun-03 6:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"[N.B. This post was started but never finished.] Been a while since I did any reviews. Let's see what I'm reading these days ......","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":174,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/04\/funnies.html","url_meta":{"origin":209,"position":2},"title":"Funnies","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Jun-03 8:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"Since Lileks is busy talking about the comic strips he reads, I might as well do the same. After all -- there are worse things I could do than slavishly...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27567,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/25\/comic-book-writers-vs-artists-yet-again.html","url_meta":{"origin":209,"position":3},"title":"Comic Book Writers vs Artists (yet again)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 25-Apr-12 1:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The suggestion that artists have nothing to do with the creative success of comic books, that it's all about the writer, is as insane ill-founded as the Image-era suggestion that comics are all about the artists and who needs writers anyway?There are comics I've read where I read them despite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7859,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/08\/06\/bt05_blogathonn.html","url_meta":{"origin":209,"position":4},"title":"BT05 – Blogathonners Assemble!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 6-Aug-05 7:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"First off, I want to thank Margie for her support in this, on a bunch of different levels. Things have been increasingly stressful at her office, between organizational conflicts and...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128159,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/26\/cant-tell-your-comic-book-artists-without-a-program.html","url_meta":{"origin":209,"position":5},"title":""Can't tell your comic book artists without a program!"","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Sep-15 12:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"Decent test of comic book artists recognition. 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