Small Girl with a Cat

A Small Girl with a Cat
Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923)
1889
Petit Palais, Geneva

I just came across this fabulous painting in a book at work, The Cat: 3500 Years of the Cat in Art. This is not an artist I'm familiar with nor is it the best painting I've ever seen, but I love how the girl is holding the cat and the pink in black. The media and size of the painting are unknown. It does look like the artist was a fan of cats: http://www.steinlen.net/main.php?g2_itemId=94

Steinlen was most well known for his illustration work in France, designing fabulous posters like the one to the left. Yay for cats!

Ceramic Horn

Ceramic Horn
France, late 18th or early 19th century
Glazed pottery
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 89.4.1115

How cool is this horn? Sadly this hunting horn was used for decorative display only. Covered in blue flowers, the horn also bears an unidentified coat of arms. Check the image out full-screen and zoom.

The Ladies

Elizabeth Vigee le Brun
Self-portrait in a straw hat, after 1782
National Gallery, London

In honor of Women's History Month, a week of works by fantastic women. Vigee le Brun was one of the most successful women artists of her time as well more successful than many of the male counterparts of her day. Primarily self-taught due to the exclusion of women from art schools, Vigee Le Brun painted her way into the French Court at the age of 20. She was commissioned to paint portraits of inflential people of the time, including Queen Marie-Antoinette. She was admitted (one of only 4 seats reserved for women) to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris.

While marriage and children often ended the artistic careers of women, Vigee Le Brun supported herself and her daughter with painting. Her self-portrait focuses on her status as a professional artist, her palette showing the colors with which this portrait is painted. (NG London/Painting of the Month). She was revered by both critics and fellow painters alike. When coming across this painting in the National Gallery (I wandered its halls often while studying in London) I always stopped to spend some time with Elizabeth.

Oddly, a lover of both bats and Vigee Le Brun dedicates a site to her... I don't exactly understand it but it offers much in the way of text and images. http://www.batguano.com/vigee.html

I still use brushes

I still use brushes, 1969
Arman (1928-2005)
(American, born France. 1928-2005) Brushes embedded in plastic, in acrylic box, 80 x 80"
Museum of Modern Art


Classified as painting at the Museum of Modern Art, Arman comments on the tradition of painting. I saw this work for the first time recently and was initially sparked by the dimension and color, not yet realizing that it was not a painting per say but objects (paint brushes) encased in acrylic. The detail was fascinating (see image to the right).

Arman worked with large accumulations of objects, rejecting the tradition of painting and sculpture yet continuing to comment on both through his work. The form of objects embedded in resin became a standard for many his works (About this artist, MoMA) Arman was also an avid collector.

Drizzle

GREAT BRITAIN. England. London. Hyde Park in the grey drizzle, 1937.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
c. Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

Oh so many beautiful photographs but I simply adore this one.

Cartier-Bresson started out as a painter before discovering photography and interestingly left photography after 45 years and spent the remained of his life pursuing drawing.

"He explained his approach to photography in these terms: 'for me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. ... It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.' " (Magnum Bio)

The Magnum website is great, offering images, biographies, exhibitions, books and more on its member photographers.

See more Cartier-Bresson photos here.

Solitary Impressionism

Caillebotte, Gustave
Young Man at His Window
1875
Oil on canvas
117 x 82 cm
Private collection

I wrote this up last night and forgot to post it! Sorry its late!

I am not exactly sure why I chose this particular work. Once again, my choice of artist stems from exposure to another exhibition catalog. This time a monograph on the artist Gustave Caillebotte, who I readily admit never hearing of before, though I do recognize one work so far.

Associated with the Impressionists (Monet, Degas, etc.) he spent much of his time as a rich young collector of the work of his colleagues, helping to market their work. His own work is debated about. While I was never originally a fan of work of the late 19th century, the random choosing of that period to cover for my first lecture to an auditorium undergraduates, was the start of a never before seen appreciation and eventual interest in the period. In addition to all kinds of awesomeness that was occuring at the end of the 19th c. Caillebotte covered a lot of ground in his work, from still lifes and interior scenes to urban Paris and boating scenes (he was an accomplished boat designer as well). While the boating and seafaring scenes didn't do much to peak my interest (the focus of the catalog) I decided to do some more investigating and found myself drawn to some of his other works

What do I love about today's work? I love that you can't see the young man's face, the care that is taken in the detail of the vertical bits on the railing (does anyone know what these are called?), the only color coming from the lower right hand of the painting in the chair and rug, that the man's right leg is slightly back as if he is going to step away from the window yet is left foot is planted and his face is set on the bright day outside...

This excerpt by Kirk Varnedoe (Gustave Caillebote 2000) brings up a lot of the reasons for the difficulty there has been placing Caillebotte in the history of art. An artist's place in history is a unique topic, depending so much on the selling of work as well as the passing on of appreciation. Artists and writers roles shift in and out throughout our reading of history. Current culture and climates affect how we perceive one's art today, yesterday and tomorrow. Guess where I got this image?!