Cranach, Lucas the Elder
Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553), German Renaissance painter and graphic artist, who excelled in portraits and in female nudes. Cranach, whose original name may have been Lucas Müller or Sunder, was born on October 4, 1472, in Kranach, Franconia, from which town he took his surname. It is believed that Cranach (Kranach) studied painting with his father. From about 1501 to 1504 →
De Andrea, John
De Andrea, John (1941- ), American sculptor, creator of life-size nudes made of painted polyvinyl and finished with human hair. The extreme realism of De Andrea's nude figures, cast directly from live models, forces the art viewer into the potentially awkward position of acting as a voyeur. John De Andrea was born in Denver, Colorado. He studied art at the University of →
Joplin, Janis
Joplin, Janis (1943-1970), American rock singer, considered by many to be the greatest white female blues artist of all time. Born to a middle-class family in Port Arthur, Texas, she ran away from home at the age of 17 to sing folk music in clubs in the Texas cities of Austin and Houston. In 1963 she hitchhiked to California, where she →
Giorgione
Giorgione (1478?-1510), Italian painter, who invigorated the Venetian school of painting and whose art was unrivaled in the portrayal of mood. Details of Giorgione's life and career are sparse and unreliable, but it appears that he was born in Castelfranco and that he studied under the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini. His original name was probably Giorgio Barbarelli. No signed and dated works →
Pearlstein, Philip
Pearlstein, Philip (1924- ) American painter, best known for his stark, precise, unidealized depictions of nude figures. He was a leading proponent of an art movement in the 1960s, sometimes referred to as new realism, which advocated a return to the representation of the human figure, in contrast to the prevailing dominance of abstraction. Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he →
Hazlitt William Poetry Quote
His thoughts did not seem to come with labour and effort; but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him from off his feet. William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830) British essayist and critic.Referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lectures on the English Poets, "On the Living Poets"
Maria Calendaria,
Maria Calendaria, motion picture about a small-town woman scorned because of her mother’s past indiscretions. Released in 1944, this Mexican film directed by Emilio Fernández was one of eleven Grand Prize winners at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival after the festival had been delayed for twelve years due to war. A young woman in a rural Mexican village faces unpopularity because →
Brandt, Bill
Brandt, Bill (1904-1983), one of Britain’s most influential 20th-century photographers. Born in Hamburg (not London as he later claimed), he spent his childhood in Germany and Switzerland before moving to Paris, France, where, through his friend, poet Ezra Pound, he met American painter and photographer Man Ray. Brandt studied briefly with Ray before traveling to London in 1931. There he began →
Portraits
A portrait is a picture in which there is something wrong with the mouth. Attributed to Eugene Speicher (1883 - 1962) U.S. painter.
Archer, Frederick Scott
Archer, Frederick Scott (1813-1857), English photographer, the inventor of the first practical method of producing copies of a photograph. Archer’s process opened a new era in photography. Born in Bishop’s Stortford, England, Archer worked as an apprentice silversmith in London. He then worked in portrait sculpture and became interested in photography. In the 1830s there were two photographic processes available, but both →
William Hazlitt Quotes Poetry
He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever. William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830) British essayist and critic.Referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lectures on the English Poets, "On the Living Poets"
Picasso, Pablo
Picasso, Pablo born October 25, 1881, Málaga, Spain died April 8, 1973, Mougins, France In full Pablo Ruiz y Picasso Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century and the creator (with Georges Braque) of Cubism. The enormous body of Picasso's work remains, and the legend lives on—a tribute to →
Hazlitt, William
Hazlitt, William (1778-1830), English essayist and critic, famous for the lucidity and brilliance, in both style and content, of his many essays. Hazlitt was born April 10, 1778, the son of a Unitarian minister, in Maidstone, Kent. He spent a short time at the Unitarian theological seminary at Hackney but soon abandoned the ministry to study painting and philosophy. In 1812 he →
Negrista Poets
Negrista Poets, a group of Latin American and Caribbean poets, mostly white and middle class, who incorporated black themes of folklore, religious practices, music, and dance in their work. Writing principally from the 1930s to the 1950s, the group included such writers as Luis Palés Matos and Emilio Ballagas of Puerto Rico and Ramón Güirao and José Zacarías Tallet of Cuba. First →
Hine, Lewis Wickes
Hine, Lewis Wickes (1874-1940), American photographer who was a pioneer in the field of documentary photography. Hine’s lifelong appreciation for the contributions of American workers and his concern for social justice shaped his life as a photographer. Among his best-known works are photographs documenting the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City in the early 1930s. Born in Oshkosh, →
Fusion Art
Since the mid 1970's when the late art historian and writer Peter Philburn coined the phrase "The Fusion Art of Bob Orsillo" Bob Orsillo has been given what he considers the undeserved credit as the founder of Fusion art movement. If you ask Bob Orsillo who the founder is - he will start with Man Ray and work his back →
Evans, Walker
Evans, Walker (1903-1975), American photographer, best known for his photographs documenting poverty in the American South of the late 1930s. His photographs are noted for their realism and sense of humanity; even his studies of buildings and interiors convey a feeling of human presence. Many of Evans’s images preserve timeless artifacts such as barber shop windows, shoeshine signs, cheap eating utensils →
Kirlian Photography
Kirlian Photography, photographic process that involves the use of electrostatic phenomena associated with the object being photographed. When unexposed film is placed on an electrode, and the object placed on or near the film, the electrode is subjected to high-voltage pulses. The film is then developed, and various kinds of “halos” or “auras” are seen to surround the object. These results →
of Art
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792) British painter and writer. Discourse to the students of the Royal Academy
Ballad of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
A graveyard for pleasure, good taste, the urge to fornicate with what's painted. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Rafael Alberti (1902 - 1999) Spanish poet.Referring to Pablo Picasso's painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). The Eight Names of Picasso, "Ballad of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon"
Graffito
Graffito, also sgraffito, in art, a technique of producing a design by incising or cutting through a surface layer of paint or plaster to reveal a contrasting undercoat. The term is derived from an Italian word meaning “scratched.” True graffito techniques are found primarily in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art, but the term is usually extended to include any technique that →
Ultraviolet Photography
Ultraviolet Photography, photography that makes use of the special properties of ultraviolet light (see Ultraviolet Radiation). Ultraviolet light has wavelengths too short to be seen by the human eye, but normal photographic film is sensitive to ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet photography is useful because some objects that are normally invisible can become detectable in ultraviolet light. For instance, certain types of skin →
Illustration
Illustration, pictorial material appearing with a text and amplifying or enhancing it. Although illustrations may be maps, charts, diagrams, or decorative elements, they are more usually representations of scenes, people, or objects related in some manner—directly, indirectly, or symbolically—to the text they accompany. The historical origins of illustration are as ancient as those of writing. The pictographs of early humans, →
Photography and Art
Photography's popularity among the 19th century's growing urban middle class produced a sharp but vigorous backlash. French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire declared in 1859 that “if photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.” Baudelaire's complaint →
