Thursday, 2 July 2009
Monday, 22 June 2009
The development of Mondrian
Piet Mondrian is probably best known for his Neo-Plasticism paintings of primary coloured rectangles of Red, Blue and Yellow. However his early work has a stark contrast to this aesthetic.
Piet Mondrian. View of Winterswijk. / Gesicht op Winterswijk. 1898/99. Watercolor. 52 x 63.5 cm. Private collection
Summer Night / Somernacht. 1906/07. Oil on canvas. 71 x 110.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Landscape with Trees. / Landschap met bomen. 1911/12. Oil on canvas. 120 x 100 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Composition No.6. / Compositie nr.6. 1914. Oil on canvas. 88 x 61 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Composition with Blue, Red and Yellow / Compositie met blauw,rood en geel..1930. Oil on canvas. 28 1/2" x 21 1/4". Sidney Janis Collection, New York, NY, USA.
Victory Boogie-Woogie. 1943/44 (unfinished). Oil and paper on canvas, diagonal 177.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Piet Mondrian. View of Winterswijk. / Gesicht op Winterswijk. 1898/99. Watercolor. 52 x 63.5 cm. Private collection
Summer Night / Somernacht. 1906/07. Oil on canvas. 71 x 110.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Landscape with Trees. / Landschap met bomen. 1911/12. Oil on canvas. 120 x 100 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Composition No.6. / Compositie nr.6. 1914. Oil on canvas. 88 x 61 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Composition with Blue, Red and Yellow / Compositie met blauw,rood en geel..1930. Oil on canvas. 28 1/2" x 21 1/4". Sidney Janis Collection, New York, NY, USA.
Victory Boogie-Woogie. 1943/44 (unfinished). Oil and paper on canvas, diagonal 177.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Paul Cézanne - Lac d’Annecy
It was, said Paul Cézanne, the type of landscape young lady travellers like to sketch in their albums. His holiday by the pretty Lac d'Annecy, in the foothills of the French Alps in 1896, was one of the few occasions when this most rebellious of 19th-century French artists played the conventional bourgeois, and in his letters you can feel him strain at the sweaty, starched collar. He was staying in a hotel with his wife, Hortense, and their 14-year-old son, also called Paul. This game of happy families was a charade: Cézanne and Hortense mostly lived apart. Perhaps it was this sense of hypocrisy that poisoned the landscape for him, making him see in it the dead hand of the picturesque: nature here was not wild as in his native Provence, "but a little like we've been taught to see it ... "
The view is framed by a tree whose broad trunk rises on the left, and whose branches cut across the upper part of the picture in two dark waving thrusts towards the bottom. The lake divides the canvas in half and its far shore appears as a straight line, which perfectly bisects the main body of the trunk. So the painting is structured like a "T" on its side, while across the crystalline lake floats a chateau whose tower is a dense cylinder.
The Lac d'Annecy is, in its very violence, a triumph of order. Cézanne unleashes wild forces above the lake in order to tame them. The forces are his own - and so is the resolution. The drama of this painting is the emotional drama of the painter sitting there at his easel, thinking terrible things, overcoming his terror and anger, finding in the landscape a multi-faceted mirror of his inner struggle.
Extracted from an article by Jonathan Jones of www.theguardian.co.uk
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Monday, 15 June 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Wow - He did It!
Beginning at 23:30 on Saturday May 16th and through 4:00 Monday May 18th, Gonzales will attempt to break the Guiness World Record for longest concert by a solo artist. The previous record is 26 hours and 12 minutes and was performed by Prasanna Gudi (India) at the Mallikarjun Mansoor Kala Bhavan public auditorium, Dharwad, Karnataka, India from 28 to 29 December 2008.
Gonzales explains his motivation: "I will do this to push my muscial and physical stamina. I believe music is part art, part athletics and this 27-hour concert will demonstrate both aspects."
Gonzales has been consulting with the Guiness Book of Record to ensure a smooth attempt and an Official Guinness Judge will adjudicate the event on site. Repertoire will touch on recognizable songs from all eras and styles of music, in new and surprising arrangements. There will be no repetition of material during the attempt. As Gonzales himself says "I will break the record without sounding like a broken record".
The record attempt takes place at the theatre of notable French film director Claude Lelouch and his daughter Salome, Theatre Ciné 13 at 1 avenue Junot in Paris. The attempt in its entirety will be streamed live on www.Arte.fr and look out for a documentary of the event in the future.
Gonzales explains his motivation: "I will do this to push my muscial and physical stamina. I believe music is part art, part athletics and this 27-hour concert will demonstrate both aspects."
Gonzales has been consulting with the Guiness Book of Record to ensure a smooth attempt and an Official Guinness Judge will adjudicate the event on site. Repertoire will touch on recognizable songs from all eras and styles of music, in new and surprising arrangements. There will be no repetition of material during the attempt. As Gonzales himself says "I will break the record without sounding like a broken record".
The record attempt takes place at the theatre of notable French film director Claude Lelouch and his daughter Salome, Theatre Ciné 13 at 1 avenue Junot in Paris. The attempt in its entirety will be streamed live on www.Arte.fr and look out for a documentary of the event in the future.
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