Flowers

Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)
Vase of Flowers, c.1905
oil on fabric
73cm x 59cm
Cleveland Museum of Art
image: http://www.clemusart.com/explore/work.asp?location=14320&recNo=1&tab=2&display=


Another work that I enjoyed discovering at the Cleveland Museum of Art last week. Odilon Redon is more commonly known for dark drawings and lithographs. Redon was a prominent Symbolist. He was inspired by emotions and imagination, strange subjects infusing his work. Later in his career he began to paint and proved to have a wonderful eye for color. The colors of this painting are what drew me to it, the warmth of the orange red predominate and soak you in while bits of cooler blues and whites pop to add to a brightness in the work.

still life with fruit

Balthasar van der Ast (Dutch, 1593/1594 - 1657)
Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, c.1620-21
oil on panel
40x70 cm.
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Object number: SK-A-2152

Specialized in still lifes of flowers and fruit. While many a Dutch still life was produced in the 17th century, I continue to find individual works that I really enjoy. The width of this painting and the way the artist has spread his objects along the time beyond the cluster of the plate of fruit increases its interest.

More work by van der Ast

Cafe Baby

Wonder Seated, 2008
Mark Bercier
30x40 in.
image: http://cafebabyneworleans.com/artwork.php

Another artist discovered on our road trip, we wandered into a gallery called Cafe Baby in New Orleans. We had quickly fallen for some small paintings of flowers in the front window. (Hope to buy one some day). The gallery was full of wonderful whimsy and luck for us, the man sitting at the desk was the artist. He proceeded to tell us all about Cafe Baby, his unique signs and symbols which he uses in his work and his wonderful obsession with old and handmade paper (the flower paintings are goauche on handmade paper). He opened up his other gallery 2 doors down and we had a wonderful time chatting about art and New Orleans.

More of Mark's work

Dogwood Basin

Dogwood Basin, 2008
Nancy Blum
30 basins cast out of bronze mounted on platforms.
Charlotte Area Transit System Rail Line, Charlotte, NC

The inspiration for all of Nancy Blum's work is flowers and botanicals, from large scale drawings to public works, she reinvents the beauty of the flower in myriad ways. I think these water fountains are just wonderful. She transforms the delicate nature of, well nature, into a variety of materials, from ink to porcelain to bronze. Blum was commissioned to do this work, the state flower of NC is the dogwood. Public transit is a popular arena for art commissioning. Many transit systems have a programs dedicated to commissioning art for their stations, vehicles etc. Nancy Blum - public art See earlier blog post on another public transit art work.

I've tried to share a variety of types of art that have nature at their base. From painting and photography to ephemeral earth art and sturdy, utilitarian public art. In all these works, the artists are reconstituting what they see in nature, immortalizing it in a photograph, abstracting and infusing it in paint, rearranging its aesthetic in nature and casting its likeness in a bronze waterfountain. We are reintroduced to nature through the artist's eyes, hand and material.

Emphemeral Dandelion

Dandelion Hole (199?)
Andy Goldsworthy (1056-)
Image: travelinglight.vox.com

I unfortunately have not been able to find out the date of this particular work as no one who has posted it gives a source for the image, If I do find it I will update.

Artist, naturalist, environmentalist, Andy Goldsworthy takes natural elements and painstakingly recreates their physical and aesthetic presence. A sculptor, earth and landscape artist, Goldsworthy's aesthetic vision stems from the natural environment. His works are collaborations with nature, nature providing the inherent individual beauty and serving as found object, Goldsworthy impressing upon the natural state a unique and beautiful new vision.


While we can continue to see these works through their documentation (photograph) their existence remains ephemeral. Goldsworthy's use of the natural environment in medium and usually location (some of his works are created in indoors) is inherently fleeting, these flowers may remain like this for only hours but possibly days, or even months. Sometimes the material is hardier and sturdier like wood and stones, others as susceptible to its environment as a leaf that may soon blow away. A clip from the documentary, Rivers and Tides (which I have to admit to never having seen and will remedy this as soon as possible) shows the very essence of this ephemerality. If you are interested, you may very well be able to find it in your local library.

Birds and flowers

Title? Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
Lu Ji (1477-?)
likely on silk

A painter of bird and flower works, I haven't been able to find much on Lu Ji, discovering the painting on ChinaCulture.org.

Ming Dynasty art was known for its many different styles stemming from its variety of schools and sects. Lu Ji and others were known for more true to life/reality paintings, Lu Ji most specifically birds and flowers. Flower-and-bird painting is a genre of Chinese painting alongside genres such as landscape. His vivid colors and finely detailed work are exemplary. The rich goldenrod of the background is what draws me to the painting, the other works I've been able to find consist of much more muted colors.

Website dedicated to understanding Chinese painting.

Dahlia

Gaillardia Cosmos Dahlia, 2005
Robert Kushner
Oil, acrylic, gold leaf, silver leaf, mica and glitter on Japanese screen, 69 x 68 3/4 inches

A discovery through a small catalog at work, I've quickly fallen in love with Robert Kushner's work. It took me awhile to narrow down just one work so please visit the links and see the wonderful array of paintings that Kushner has created. Beautiful, rich color makes these paintings pop. Kushner often reuses old Japanese screens and doors as his "canvas" but the Japanese influences spread throughout his choice of base for his painting. While these themes are inherent what is beautiful and makes these paintings unique is Kushner's western traditions in his style of painting. His florals are bold and his composition is seemingly random, the structure one would associate with a Japanese painting is loosened in Kushner's work. Dimension is created through different styles of flowers, from simple outlined flowers to multi-colored depth.

It is fascinating to know that Kushner started out as a performance artist in the 1970s, whose creation of costumes were the beginning of his attention to decoration and ornament. One can see the decoration and ornament of his current floral paintings in not only the color, structure and subject matter but also the use of materials beyond traditional paint to include gold leaf, glitter and more. Kushner was a part of the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s. Artists created work of complex and brightly colored patterns.

Poppies and Daisies

Red Poppies and Daisies
Vincent van Gogh (links to a nice audiovisual bio and info)
oil on canvas
65.0 x 50.0 cm.
1890
private collection


As is usual, my Friday is a little wonky. Always have trouble getting things done, so I apologize for the lateness of the art today. Today is simple yet gorgeous (weather and art!) this is currently the image on my desktop. It took me awhile to find the details of this image (ie location, date, size). I eventually did at a website dedicated to van Gogh (supposedly endorsed by the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam), it has eons of digital images organized by the period of time and place in which they were created, very limited on subjects to search. Before this, Unfortunately I couldn't find the image anywhere that is not selling a print of it, which is pretty awful for all kinds of reasons including the insane commercialization of "pretty" pictures. It's as if an original never existed. It is fascinating to do an image search for something you've seen in person (and know the colors and hues etc.) and see the unending array of bad reproductions out there. To check out more flower paintings and more... (so prolific he was, creating 840 paintings and 1000 drawings in just 10 years) see here... There isn't a shortage of van Gogh paintings in public collections, I suggest the next time you come across one, spend some time with it. It took me some years to really begin to understand and appreciate his work, and the application of paint is simply marvelous and something I took on in my own work back in college - to no equivalent measure but I enjoy it just the same.

It's an interesting bit about digital images, many assume they are better (and they are getting better) but because of the quick and easy way of being able to create them, originally with art, not enough attention was paid to color detail. A reason why there are still many an art prof out there who wants to hold onto his slides because some of them (those that are well made and not excruciatingly old) actually provide a better surrogate image then some of those born digital. I digress... enjoy van Gogh's flowers as I always do and more van Gogh will be in your future (as one of my all time favorite paintings is a van Gogh, care to guess what it is?)

Flowers

Andy Warhol. (American, 1928-1987). Ten-Foot Flowers. 1967. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 9' 7" x 9' 7" (292.2 x 292.2 cm). Nina and Gordon Bunshaft Bequest Fund, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (by exchange) and the Committee on Painting and Sculpture Fund. © 2008 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
museum of modern art

Some flowers for you.
Short and sweet day.