edouard-leon cortes 2

more information about EDOUARD-LEON CORTES in an earlier post. and more about parisianism and the other parisian painters here and here.

© edouard-leon cortes

Advertisement

beauty of art 7

picasso’s ceramics

PABLO PICASSO, 1881 – 1973, fell in love with a new creative medium in 1946. he was already 65 years old and was considered as one of the most influental artists of the 20th century, known for co-founding the CUBIST movement together with GEORGES BRAQUE, and responsible for significant more developments in painting, sculpture and printmaking. PICASSO’S new love affair was CERAMICS, and lasted until his death. together with the MADOURA studio he created 4.000 different plates, bowls, vases, pitchers and other forms in limited editions ranging from 25 to 500. PICASSO was involved in different ways, sometimes creating the clay molds, other times painting on plates or pitchers taken from the drying racks. the prototypes were then finished by the MADOURA artisans.
in GEORGES RAMIE’S book PICASSO’S CERAMICS the author states – PICASSO gave himself up to it heart and soul, with that tireless vehemence he brought to everything, the indomitable ardor of those vocations that are all the more fruitful for being slow to appear. and it was from that moment – and thanks to the prestige of the work PICASSO was yet to do – that ceramics, which many had always considered a minor art, began to enjoy an eminence hitherto unsuspected and now universally admitted.
PICASSO had already been amazingly productive as a printmaker, he too enjoyed creating ceramics, producing more than 2.000 pieces just in one year from 1947 to 1948, embodying innovations in form, technique, and the use of colors. below you can see a small selection of my favorite pieces of his ceramics art.

© pablo picasso / sotheby’s

rené georges hermann-paul

RENE GEORGES HERMANN-PAUL, 1864 – 1940, was a well known french illustrator and fine artist who was published in numerous newspapers. during his time he was exhibited in galleries together with MATISSE and TOULOUSE-LAUTREC. he criticized the atrocities of the first world war in his art, later his work shows notions of patriotism and pacifism. during WW1 metal becomes rare since it is being used for weapons, a main reason for PAUL to shift from etching to woodcut. he concentrates on this technique to his death. this media helped to accentuate the sparse style and simplified forms that characterized his illustrations. one of his woodcut series, he published after the end of WW1, is stunning, LA DANSE MACABRE, – you can see it below.

© rené georges hermann-paul

beauty of art 4

beauty of art 2

beauty of art 1

german expressionism 2

here now part 2 with the artists of DER BLAUE REITER

© marc / macke / muenter / campendonk / klee / kandinsky

german expressionism 1

EXPRESSIONISM comes from latin – expressio, what means ‘expression’. shortly before WW1 this definition for a stylistic direction developed, it was aimed against naturalism and impressionism. in art expressionism for the first time moved away from copying nature, it was not about to show what was visible, but to make the invisible visible. the artists destroyed beauty ideals and created instead deformed caricatures. a big influence came from medieval art, where painters and sculptors exaggerated their work to intensify the spiritual expressiveness of their subjects, art that expresses intense emotion, or – distorts reality for an emotional effect. look at the distorted figures of EL GRECO or MATTHIAS GRUENEWALD. later VINCENT VAN GOGH, PAUL GAUGUIN and EDVARD MUNCH used violent colors for intense emotional expression. the expressionists believed that art and society were interwoven. through art, literature, film, and music they disclosed social injustices, rejected materialistic prosperity, and wanted to weaken the privileged leisure-class system. They felt this could only be achieved through ARTISTIC AWARENESS and a proletarian revolution to dismantle laissez-faire capitalism.

the main centers where EXPRESSIONISM developed were germany and austria. in germany it was the WILHELMINE ERA, where the aristocratic oldfashioned KAISERREICH collided with a growing modern, industrial system. it was total asymmetry, the ruling class of prussian nobility, dominating the army and counsils of state, against democratic changes especially in the progressive middle class – in the end germany’s political elites resort to war in 1914 as a strategy of survival. the first worldwar makes things worse, millions die between 1914 and 1918, the german-austrian monarchy collapses, during the following weimar republic a major economic crisis develops, in parts result of the versailles contracts, then communism and fashism – all that leads to nazi germany and the next worldwar.

back to art where the most important expressionist group in the 20th century was the GERMAN SCHOOL. the movement was originated by the painters ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER, ERICH HECKEL, and KARL SCHMIDT-ROTTLUFF , who in 1905 organized a group in dresden called DIE BRUECKE (the bridge). they were joined in 1906 by EMIL NOLDE and MAX PECHSTEIN and in 1910 by OTTO MUELLER. in 1912 this group exhibited paintings along with a munich group that called itself DER BLAUE REITER (the blue rider). the latter included the german painters FRANZ MARC, AUGUST MACKE, GABRIELE MUENTER, and HEINRICH CAMPENDONK, the swiss artist PAUL KLEE, and the russian painter WASSILY KANDINSKY. DIE BRUECKE was dissolved by 1913, and WW1 halted most group activity.
a new phase of german expressionism called DIE NEUE SACHLICHKEIT (the new objectivity) grew out of the disillusionment following WW1. founded by OTTO DIX and GEORGE GROSZ, it was characterized by both a concern for social truths and an attitude of satiric bitterness and cynicism. expressionism meanwhile had become an international movement, and the influence of the germans is seen in the works of many international artists.

one of the next posts will cover the development of EXPRESSIONISM in film.

below the first part of the collected artwork of the most important representatives of GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM, tomorrow the second part –

© kirchner / heckel / schmitt-rottluff / nolde / pechstein / mueller

seasons in art 1

inspiring art 4

inspiring art 3

inspiring art 2

inspiring art 1

dirk baksteen

not too much can be found on the internet about DIRK BAKSTEEN, 1886 – 1971. accidentally I saw one of his paintings and liked it so much that I had to find more about this artist and his work. BAKSTEEN was born in rotterdam, netherlands, where he attended evening classes at the art academy. in 1912 he settled in mol, belgium. mol becomes later the center of the MOLSE SCHOOL, following the successful BARBIZON SCHOOL earlier in france. the ‘school of mol’ becomes popular for their PLEIN AIR art, – besides BAKSTEEN, JACOB SMITS, PAUL MATHIEU and GASTON DE BIEMME are some of the representatives of the group. baksteen met american etching artist W.SHERWOOD who introduced him to all the secrets of the engraving technique. baksteen became member of the chicago etching society in 1924 and had an exhibit in the palais de beaux arts in bruxelles in 1935. I love the way he portrays nature in that part of europe, with its open wide fields and the simple cottages. too bad I did not know his work when I worked on ‘beauty and the beast’.

style 10.2

to continue the collection of different styles throughout the last centuries in art I put together a few landscape paintings

style 10.1

it is a challenge to develop a special style for an illustration, an animated movie or just a character. the goal is to create something that nobody has done before. for that reason and of course for inspiration I recommend to gather all reference that is available. usually the amount of information we have is not sufficient, information not just about the designwork in illustration and film of the past few years, but information about what has been created in ‘the arts’ over the past 12.000 years. starting with the cave paintings of lascaux, early highly stylized egyptian art as well as greek- and roman sculptures and mosaics, and the whole medieval art from byzanthine to gothic. further in more recent centuries baroque, rokoko, romanticism, impressionism, art nouveau, expressionism and of course all the modern art of the past 70 years. not to forget russian-, oriental-, persian- and indian-, southern american-, african-, eskimo- and aborigine art.

the knowledge about all these different ‘styles’ is helpful. in the past it was pretty difficult if not impossible to find all the right publications or visit enough museums to study the vast amount of art that has been created all over the world. today it is much easier to research through the internet, with a bit detective work everybody interested enough can do it.

most of the above compiled artwork in figurative art was created over the past 500 years. the series will be continued, I want to concentrate on some more unusual and lesser known art. hopefully that will encourage you to start your own archives.

style analysis 3

we talked about all the different things around us that influence our visual understanding. that is different with younger children who are still able to see the world pure without all the interpretations and often wrong visions that corrupt our brain more and more the older we get and the more we download into our internal harddrive. a lot of famous artists, like PICASSO, MATISSE and MIRO, used children drawings for inspiration because they are not following some artistic influence yet. the only difference between drawings of different children is the way they grow up, happy, free, without pressure – or not. that’s why children drawings all over the world and independent from their culture look similar. following are some beautiful examples of children – ‘art’ I found on different websites, and art of the masters that shows clearly the influence. further images from the JOHN & FAITH HUBLEY animated shorts MOONBIRD and ADVENTURES OF AN *, where you will notice the reference to PICASSO and to children art. that is as well the case in a lot of shorts from ZAGREB FILM, I show only a few examples here.

© picasso / miro / john & faith hubley / zagreb film / unknown children